September 23, 2013

Mom,

Yes, I only had a stomach sickness.

We had a better turnout to church this week. We had about 20 people. We also had a lot of people at our activity, almost 30.

Yes, we have some investigators now, but it will be hard for them to progress.

No, I can´t think of anything that I need for christmas.

Thanks for the pictures. I don´t have much to tell about this week. It was kind of boring. I learned some cool stuff about the importance of setting goals this week, which was good. That´s about it though. We did a service project on saturday to go mow someone´s lawn, but with machetes... That was tough. I had to go buy a machete to help out with the service, because they didn´t have 2, and only had a small one.. (and I wanted one and it was cheap...) 

It was a hard service, and I have a few blisters from chopping grass. It is very tiring to chop the grass swing at a time. It´s not very effective either. I was tired after doing that. That´s about as exciting as this week was.

I hope that things are going well there.

Love,

Elder Ward

September 16, 2013

Mom,

Yeah, it was kind of sad that we didn´t have people for that sacrament meeting. This week we didn´t have people because there was another festival, and another parade. We had even less this week, so we had a record number of fewest people to take the sacrament, just five.. the four elders and a member that came.

 It was alright though, we watched the Testaments instead of having classes, and had a ten minute sacrament meeting, with just the absolute basic meeting. It was rather pathetic, and it was loud outside again.

So that was kind of lame.

 I haven´t worked much in my area this week either, I went on divisions twice, and was sick for one day this week. It´s kind of been a weird week.

That´s too bad that you all have been feeling sick too..

 Well, I hope that you have a good week this next week

 Love,

 Elder Ward

September 9, 2013

Hey everyone, here´s the update for the week (it´s probably more like an update for the month by now, because I´m a slacker at group emailing):

First off, I hope that everyone from my family is alright and learning to love going without power and boiling water and cleaning up fallen trees and dealing with floods and mudslides. That sounds like an adventure for you all. Some of it sounds a little familiar... Mostly just the power outages for long periods of time and filtering water, haha, hopefully the weather gets better there and that there aren´t more enchantments of large green vortexes over our house knocking over trees anymore...

Well, this week has been good, we had changes this week, but me and my companion stay the same. The other Elders in our area had changes though. The elder who´s had a ton of time in this area and basically taught me how to do everything here in the branch left. An elder who was in my MTC district came in his place, which is cool because we already know each other and have gotten right to work. We´ve done a ton of divisions with him this week, so that I can teach him how to do a lot of stuff here in the branch because his companion is still just barely starting out in the mission and is learning spanish more than anything. So that was the big change this week. We´ve had a lot to do for the branch this week too. We did visits on saturday with all 4 elders, but a lot of people said that they weren´t going to come to church this sunday because of another festival that they had in Yuscaran (I´ve come to hate the festivals here in yuscaran, because they´re pointless and always on sundays, and they´ve had like 5 already in the 4 months I´ve been here). So almost all of the members had children in the parade, and it was required that the children would go to the parade, so everyone said that they weren´t going to come. So sunday morning, I had all of the classes prepared and a sacrament talk prepared to give, because nobody would take any assignments because they weren´t going to come. Then, at like 9:30, we have 1 member at church, so we are just waiting for more people to come, when the 2nd counselor to the mission president comes in to our meeting, and of course he comes on the worst day possible to come to one of our meetings. We talked to him for a while, and with him and 1 more member that showed up, we had sunday school, and after we had sacrament meeting, with 7 people in the meeting: 4 elders, the 2nd counselor, and 2 members, while we listened to the noise of the marching bands from the parade right outside. We took the sacrament, and after we finished, President turned to me and asked ´Are you going to give talks this sunday or no?´, and I told him that each of the elders had something prepared to share, but he said that we should just end the meeting early, without any sacrament talks, so I announced that this sunday, we wouldn´t have any talks, and we ended the meeting. So that was the most tiny, pathetic little sacrament meeting that I had seen in my life.

We´ve also had a few meetings that we´ve had to go to and a bunch of errands to run. I ran around Tegus doing a whole bunch of stuff today, and worked more than relaxed - a normal pday for me now, haha. But we got everything done today while we were there in Tegus, and I got everything I needed.

Anyways, it´s been a crazy week, but it´s been good. It´s been hard, because we have no investigators right now, and way too much stuff to do for the branch, but we´ll have to balance our time to go out and contact and teach and preach and work as missionaries do. :D

I hope that everyone´s doing well!!

Love you all!

Elder Ward

September 2, 2013

Mom,

and dad, (so that I don´t have to repeat saying everything twice..)

Thank you again for the package. I am enjoying the music, although I think of home often when I listen to some of the songs that I´ve heard you or Mishelae play on the piano all through my childhood.

Also, I have happily found out the secret to all of my workouts before my mission, and why I had been so lazy with working out during most of my mission. It´s because I work so much harder when I have music. This week I started a new workout program, but each day I´ll listen to the music, which isn´t even like fast paced or anything, but it helps a ton. Even if it´s like Mozart or something simple, it still helps me keep track of time and get going to a rythme. So now I´ll get buff before I come home from my mission. ;p

My other umbrella didn´t have a flashlight in it. It was bigger too, and not by the same brand. idk.

We did have our baptism this week! It was a little weird, because we did it in a swimming pool by their house. This guy owns this little old swimming pool there, and we asked him if we could use it, and he said yes. it went well, but it was difficult to find a second witness for the baptism, and we were worried we would have to redo the baptism, but it all worked out at the end.

We also had the confirmation in church yesterday, so I baptized and confirmed her, and we had a baby blessing for her son. I had never participated in a baby blessing before.

We´ve been contacting a lot this week. We´ve had a little bit of success, but not too much. This next week is changes, and we´re pretty sure that the elder who is the  first counselor is going to leave this change, which will be sad, because he knows a lot more about the branch and the area than I do, so I will be the one with the most time here in Yuscarán after he leaves.

I don´t think that my companion and I will change this time, but maybe. We´ll see.

I think that that´s about it for this week. I´m glad that you got my letter. 

Here´s some pictures that we took yesterday of us,

and another picture of us studying and doing tithing in the office. It took a while to get the camera timers to go off right so we would all be in it and studying.

We had more people come to church this week, and things are going better than before now. Hopefully the changes that come this week will help us with everything that we´re working on here.

I love you,

Love,

Elder Ward

August 26, 2013

Hello everyone!

This week has been interesting. I don´t know, it´s kind of just been an off week. We don´t have any investigators right now, so it´s been difficult to do much teaching. We have had some stuff to do to stay busy with the branch though, but it has been a weird week. It´s rained a lot this week, but thanks to the package from my parents that I got this week, I had a cool new umbrella to use that works really well and has a cool little flashlight on the bottom, which is perfect for my area, because when it rains, the power always goes out, so now I don´t have to carry both an umbrella and a flashlight.  

I also enjoyed the cards and candy in my package, and
I got a USB full of music, so I bought a sweet new mp3 player that looks like a car. It has really nice speakers too, and it was pretty cheap. So now I have a lot of good music to listen to. :)   

This week was kind of depressing, because we didn´t have hardly anyone come to church again. We´re going to have to change something, but I don´t know..

Also our baptism fell through. We were going to have a baptism this week, but when we went for the baptism on Saturday, it was really rainy and we couldn´t go out hiking out to the spot where we normally have baptisms. So we postponed it until next week. Our investigator did come to church again though, so that´s good.

I don´t know, other than that, it was a boring week here.

 

August 19, 2013

Mom,

Yeah, it is kind of weird that that package hasn´t gotten here yet, I asked today in the mission office, but it wasn´t there either, so we´ll see if it arrives.. What did it look like, was it big, did it have valuable stuff in it?

I haven´t taken out money from my card so far on my mission, I still have left over from the 200 that I had to have for luggage and stuff from the airport..

The vosotros form isn´t used here in central or south america, just in spain. But it also uses vosotros in the scriptures. It is supposed to be less formal when used.

So, the honeymoon was in florida in the end, not hawaii, that´s where mishelae said that they were going...

This week was good.. I wrote like 4 days ago, so not much else has happened. We went to Tegus today, and I also got a haircut, and my hairs really short now.. That´s about it, idk.

This sunday at church, we switched the schedule for church so that we had priesthood and relief society classes first, then sunday school, and then sacrament meeting last, because everyone has been coming like an hour late to church and missing sacrament... It turned out well, and we made sure that the RS and Elders quorum presidents both taught the lesson this week, which they weren´t doing before.We called our recent convert, to be the YW president. She is excited about doing that, and should do a good job. Now we just need a primary teacher... We´re working on that. A family was upset because we released the previous primary teacher, and she and her family got mad and didn´t come to church this sunday... sigh.

But we´re setting up a better organization of the church, so that it can run a little bit smoother when the elders come and go, the teachers and members will still have their own little setup and classes that the elders don´t always have to teach. That´s my goal at least, is that they can become more self sufficient spiritually, temporally would be super nice too. It´s interesting, but I´m learning a bunch..

Well, that´s it I guess this week. Tune in next time..

Love,

Elder Ward

August 15, 2013

Hello,

Some of you may be wondering why I am emailing so late in the week or why you haven´t received emails this monday... This monday we worked like it was a normal day so that we could go to the temple on thursday (today).

So now I feel like I have to report about 2 weeks instead of just 1, not that much exciting stuff has happened. We are still working here in the branch and with our investigators. We have found 2 new families that have moved here to yuscaran in the past who we never knew about, so we have been working with them and with their families that aren´t members. We have been busy with organizing the quorums and groups in the branch and calling new presidents and teachers that are going to do their jobs at church. We had a program with the branch this sunday about missionary work, but it was kind of sad because it rained all morning and hardly anyone came to church that day. We only had 18 people come to church...

This week, we had zone conference on wednesday, and we stayed overnight in Tegus to go to the temple this morning. It was weird working in Tegus again when I did divisions with an elder in his area after zone conference, I had to run between cars and try not to get hit, and it was louder and full of people, and I went to a church that had a ton of people there, like 200 members. That was weird to see, coming from little yuscaran. We stayed overnight at the AP´s house, which was good. We woke up this morning and went to the temple to do a session, for the first time for me in like a year. It was interesting to do it in Spanish, but I understood everything, but it was weird that they talked to us in vosotros form.. After the session we went into the celestial room, and when I finished my prayer, I looked up and everyone had already left the room and I was alone in the celestial room. I have never done that before. It was a little weird, but super cool. Then we bought a ton of stuff for the branch at the distribution center and then we came back. That´s about it for this week, but it has been a good week.

I have not received either package yet, and even went to the mission office to look for it and didn´t find it... I don´t know what happened there.

I hope that everyone is doing super well!

Love,

Elder Ward

August 5, 2013

Mom and Dad,

We had another baptism this week!! Yeah! Our investigator wanted to be baptized this saturday. We went to a city in our district that has a chapel built by the church and a baptismal font. It was a little expensive to pay for the transportation, but it was good. I´ll include some pictures.

Being in the branch presidency is a little crazy. Everyone here keeps asking for food or money helps that the church welfare helps out with. That´s been a power that´s been abused a ton here in this branch in the past.

This month we´re going to get to go to the temple (finally), with our zone, and maybe again with the branch if anyone comes to get a recommend. I´m excited to go again. It´s been a long time! (since september)

We´ve been doing good in the branch and we almost had 40 people come yesterday, which is pretty good.

I´ve had a lot of baptisms lately because all of the investigators that we´ve had have progressed and now almost all of them have been baptized, but we haven´t done as good of a job with finding new investigators to replace the old ones, so right now we only have 1 investigator, so this week we´ll have to start searching again.

No, I didn´t do anything for my year mark. Supposedly here you are supposed to burn a tie for 6 months, a shirt for a year, and pants for 18 months, but I haven´t burned anything and i don´t think that I will.

That´s about it for this week. Good luck with the wedding!

Love,

Elder Ward